A Method for Improving Heat Dissipation and Avoiding Charging Effects for Cavity Silicon-on-Glass Structures

Abstract

Anode bonding is a widely used method for fabricating devices with suspended structures, and this approach is often combined with deep reactive-ion etching (DRIE) for releasing the device; however, the DRIE process with a glass substrate can potentially cause two critical issues: heat accumulation on the suspended surface and charging effects resulting from the reflection of charged particles from the glass substrate. In particular, for torsional bars with narrow widths, the heat accumulated on the suspended surface may not dissipate efficiently, leading to photoresist burning and, subsequently, resulting in the fracture of the torsional bars; moreover, once etching is finished through the silicon diaphragm, the glass surface becomes charged, and incoming ions are reflected towards the back of the silicon, resulting in the etching of the back surface. To address these issues, we proposed a method of growing silicon oxide on the back of the device layer. By designing, simulating, and fabricating electrostatic torsional micromirrors with common cavity silicon-on-glass (SOG) structures, we successfully validated the feasibility of this approach. This approach ensures effective heat dissipation on the suspended surface, even when the structure is over-etched for an extended period, and enables the complete etching of torsional bars without adverse effects due to the overheating problem; additionally, the oxide layer can block ions from reaching the glass surface, thus avoiding the charging effect commonly observed in SOG structures during DRIE.